Mechanical Shift
by monsterball
Summary: Three voices and two sets of memories floated in his head. He assumed that they were all his. Pre-FF7. A study on Cloud's mind as it sorted out and established his false persona. Slight CloTi, but only if you squint.


**A/N: **A little look into how Cloud's bizarre mind worked into forming his complete fake persona. I think that even when he got to Midgar, his brain was still sorting things out in a kind of...electrical-pulsing-mechanical-industrial manner.

Sorry if it's a little confusing as to which voice belongs to who, but it's meant to be. Cloud's mind is a very confusing place, especially during this time-frame.

Hope you like it!

* * *

Pulsing electricity, shifting gears-

-large boots hitting the rusted earth of the city concrete, and silence. He watches the train go by and stands there, watching the orange sparks flicker into tunnel-darkness.

The smack of realization, the click in the brain into _something so terribly right (wrong) and it ripples through his bones, crackling with electricity and wiring all of the right gears in the right ways. _

His name is Cloud Strife _(Sephiroth? Yeah, he was a comrade, once—long ago, before he went insane on a random backwater town that rings in the back of his throat with a familiar taste) _and he used to be part of the elite group, SOLDIER. First-class.

First. Class. He reaffirms it in his head, puffing his chest in pride at his elite status.

Cloud looks around and observes the cold gray of the city buildings. He doesn't know why he's here _gotta protect someone- Who? Is there someone—something in Midgar worth looking for? _So he shrugs, adjusts the Buster Sword on his back _given to him by a mentor with part joy and part fierce pride because it was his to own, his to uphold, his to use_ and he walks forward into the blinking darkness of the city.

-o-

Food is a good idea, he thinks, as he eyes the market stands—

-_boy is his stomach rumbling like no other—food is for fools; just walk forward and find your mission because that's all you came here to do (_wait _what_ mission?) –_boy, your stomach growls to you, your hunger speaks to you—eat and channel that energy to feed the body, feed the starvation—_

-he blinks at the charging surge of voices that crackle in his head, and shrugs it off.

"An apple, please," he asks. (_Apples are good) (Hurry up and eat; you don't have time for this) (Feed the body boy, feed the body) _

"That'll be 10 gil."

"10 gil? What're you, trying to rip my money off?" _Don't you know who I am?-No wait, isn't this coming off as a bit rude?-No, it isn't; your status is your status and you deserve what you deserve. _

The lady frowns. "I've been selling these apples for years and I've always priced them at 10 gil. There's nothing wrong."

"Nothing wrong except you've been ripping people off for the past million years."

"Young man, if you don't want an apple then search elsewhere," she snaps. "You're the only one that has ever complained about pricing. I don't know who you are, but I suggest you leave!"

Leave? Is she denying the sword on his back, his mako-eyes, and his fierce strength just because she won't price down the apple? He lets out a short bark of laughter. "Suit yourself. Don't mind me reporting this to the higher-ups." He turns and leave the woman red-faced and outraged.

A mechanical shift once more, and-_Hm was that the right thing to do? Nah, of course it was—use your status to show who's wrong and who's right; use your status to show these worthless cretins what true power is. _

He blinks. Cretins? He shakes his head. Since when did he ever use that word? Must've been some SOLDIER lingo he picked up back in the days.

"Hi, I'd like four apples."

His mind clicks in recognition, and he turns slightly at the sound of the voice _husky's the right word—kind of breezy, airy, but low and soft, like a woman's voice that he used to preen his ears to listen _to? Couldn't have been someone special—guy like him knew his way around the women _under the well beneath the stars whispering words of a promise_ what?

Cloud turns around fully to open his mouth and tell the woman that she's just going to get her money ripped off and he freezes at the sight of the girl—

-_curves sensual enough, long enough, round enough to drive any man wild and up the wall with crazed lust; and a soft face with wine-red eyes, something that he has never seen before _but why do they seem so familiar?—

_-she's got arm's of a martial artist, legs of a fighter, and a torso made for twisting in the air to deliver roundhouse kicks. Was she a part of the army at some point?—_

_-_he licks his lips because _nevermind the curves and the fierce strength in her muscles but oh how she'd make a worth sacrifice for the sake of the Pla_—wait a minute, that doesn't sound right either.

"Hey," his voice comes out part _cheery; smooth and cold; guttural and crawling_ and gruff because it's what his (_his, right?)_ voice sounds like, what it has always sounded like. "You shouldn't buy apples from this lady. She charges them for 10 gil."

The girl –_nothing but a woman, because damn, look at those—part fighter part woman surviving her way through this wretched city; admirable—entice her to join the ranks, to join the legion, my boy—_turned her head in annoyance. "I've been buying apples from her for the longest time and she charges just the right price—"

She drops her bags at the sight of him and gasps.

"Cloud!"

A flicker, a beacon in the rusty haze of his mind, and her voice _husky with the soft hints of soprano on its edges, her hands tucked underneath her legs and her eyes downcast at her turquoise blue-dress, and she asks him "So…how long will you be gone from __**Nibelheim**__ for?" _and it clicks, turns the gears, pushes past the voices that were just a part of him (_him, right?) _and he finally knows—

-"Tifa."

"Cloud…I…."

"So. How have you been?" He feels something pulse from her _burning buildings and fierce hatred, bitter resentment because some hero he was, unable to save his own town from a madman; some comrade Sephiroth was, betraying him, his fellow First-Class SOLDIER—_"It's been a while."

She stares at him carefully and there's hesitance in her shoulders and tension in taut line of her lips _something tells him that this woman shouldn't be worried, she shouldn't be anxious, she should be happy because she deserves happiness—ignore the emotions, you fool and focus on the task at hand—_what task?

"Cloud…your eyes."

"Huh? Oh yeah. Eyes blue and infused with mako. Trademark of all members of SOLDIER."

"Oh! You made it into SOLDIER? When?"

"Long time ago. I've always been in SOLDIER." Gears click in his mind, and part pride and part joy spark in his bones as he tells her that he's part of _a promise made underneath the Nibelheim stars—_what promise?—_don't ever forget your SOLDIER honor—_ah that's it.

He's proud because he's a SOLDIER, because he never forgot his honor as a warrior despite what the company did to Nibelheim.

_Proud because he's telling—_he pushes that thought out of his mind.

"…I see."

"Hm."

"Cloud? I…it's been so long. I don't really know what to say," she says, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I'm glad you're alright though."

"Same to you."

"Mm. Why don't we sit down? I guess there's a lot to catch up on, isn't there? I'm sure you've got stories."

He follows her and his mouth almost tells her _damn right I've got stories; I've got loads and loads of them—I don't have time to tell you a story, you woman _wait. Hold on.

He doesn't like the sound of that voice so he shifts it out of his mind, letting it glare at him in cold silence.

She picks up her fallen apples and he watches the light fall of her dark hair cascading down her shoulders, and_ the apples—the apples—_the apples?—_he watched a man in a red jacket take one bite out of it, and then the second—_who? –_and the apple sat stoutly on the ground in all of its pale-blue—_apples aren't blue, they're red.

He bats the voice out of his head. He's Cloud. Apples are red.

"There's a park nearby. We can sit down there," she says. She turns to him and shoots him a smile and it makes his bones spark and ignite some strange emotion—_push that feeling out of your gut, boy—_but he doesn't have a name for it so he ignores it.

They sit down on a bench and he leans back on his hands, watching the empty swing of the swing sets and cars whiz by on the streets. "So. What've you been up to?"

"Oh. I've been alright. Running a bar, taking care of myself. Things have been tough since…well. I don't know if you heard—but, our…town," he hears her swallow and the faint tremble in her voice _that reminds him of burning buildings, fire, fire, fire, and the stench of blood searing his nostrils _–he blinks. "It…well. I don't know if you heard—"

"No…I was there," he says quietly, remembering _burning buildings and Zangan yelling at him to go chase after Sephiroth because he went mad with rage and tore apart the town and choking it to ruins_. "Sephiroth went crazy, but by the time I got out of the building it was too late. I chased after him, but…"

She is silent for a moment, and stares at him. He looks at her, matching her gaze with his, and he furrows his brow in annoyance. "What?"

"I…yeah. So you were there. Huh."

"I saw you—" The gears churn and click several times-She wore a cowgirl outfit, and he thought it looked ludicrous_ –_one shift backwards-_(no, he's never seen her wear something as flamboyant and…revealing as that; it sends an unfamiliar heat trailing down his chest and down to-)__—click-_no, she looks odd, and she was a bit of an odd girl too.

"—you were our guide. We took a photo together, and then…" he trails off, because he can hear the fire in her emotions-

-pulsing in her cells, crackling through the air and hitting him and it _burns_ so fiercely in his chest, coursing through his blood and pounding his veins, and deep-seeded anger bubbles in him because

-the gears click and:

Nibelheim, was his home-town too.

He watched it burn to the ground as his former comrade Sephiroth left a blazing trail of bloodshed and _she's lying on the ground, he's reaching out to her face—_she turns her body angrily and mutters out, her words spitting anger that she hates them all.

"Yeah…" she trails off, and he can hear the hesitation in her voice. Now he's confused. They both lost their home-town; he watched her fall, watched the buildings burn to the ground—why isn't she angry with him?

"Sephiroth was a madman," he mutters. "He used to be one helluva guy. Then he went berserk."

"You knew him?"

"Oh yeah," he says, arrogance lacing his tone. "We went on missions together, y'know, being in first-class and all."

"Oh. I see."

_Is she not impressed? _He frowns at the thought because it makes him _fear failure, fear lowliness under her eyes—_her opinion's not really that big of a deal, actually, so he pushes that thought out of his head—_her opinion meant everything to him—_

_-_no, it really doesn't. She's another cute gal.

"Cloud?"

He turns and she looks at him in concern. "Are you…sure you're alright? You seem so different then when I last saw you."

"SOLDIER does a lot of things to you. Is different a bad thing?"

"No, I just…nevermind. I'm just over-thinking things."

"Tch. Over-thinking's harsh for the brain. Loosen up a bit."

She snorts. "I see _you're_ visibly enlightened."

"Like I said," he says, pointing to his eyes. "SOLDIER."

"Yeah…" she trails off into silence.

Tifa stands up and puts her hands behind her back and he watches her, thinking that's a silly pose—_something he's always found so endearing that made his fingertips tingle with the shy—_no, not shy, he's anything but shy. It's a silly pose.

End of story. "What?" he says.

"I'm part of this rebel group called AVALANCHE and we have our base in a bar called Seventh Heaven."

"And?"

She tucks her hair behind her ears. "We could use your strength, Cloud. Will you help us?"

"What's in it for me?"

She purses her lips. "You'll get paid. But we also rebel against Shinra."

"Hn. How much's the money?"

"…I'll have to ask Barrett," she says, and he senses the faint trace of irritation and confusion in her voice. "But we can walk there first, and we can discuss there."

"Okay."

They walk back towards the bar together and he watches the flicker of the city lights. His muscles tell him _her hand is to hold, her shoulders are to touch—_his mind shakes its head and tells him _dude, you are off your rocker; you just met the girl—_and his mind blinks back to the world.

Two voices are gone, and one is left. He decides, that this voice is his, and only his (_his?)_. No one else's.

A resounding crackle of electricity surges through his brain, and suddenly his mako-enhanced senses blink into reality and _click_.

The gears turn into all of the right places, and things become startlingly clear: the glint on Tifa's teardrop earrings, the soft gleam on her lips, the scruff marks on her arms, the shaky lightbulb in the streetlamp, the neon glow of the circuit on the "Open" sign—

-he exhales and grins.

His name is Cloud Strife.

He was born in Nibelheim—_the famous well is in the middle; the rocky slopes of Mt. Nibel loom in the back and plays its own haunting tune; Tifa's house is on the right and his is one house down on the left. _

He is an ex-SOLDIER. First class.

"_So you want to be in SOLDIER?" he says, grinning at a young infantryman. "Hang in there." _

He (_he?)_ is Cloud Strife.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm going to go into the senses thing again: to me, Tifa's is sound, and Cloud's is vision. In this fic, it's because of his uh..."fresh" mako-enhancements. Also, i think Cloud would be a more vision-oriented person anyways (not saying that he's dull to his other senses; the guy probably has a crazy sense of everything) because personality-wise, he is a stronger observer than anything, I think.

Anyways. Criticism is much appreciated!


End file.
